Big Pharma Continues New Year's Tradition of Squeezing U.S. Sick for Every Last Dime – Gizmodo, Gizmodo.com

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Various pills, tablets, and suppositories on a counter; stock photo.Photo: Loic Venance (Getty Images)

Pharmaceutical giants celebrated the dawn of 2020 in the best way they know how: jacking up the prices of drugs for people in the US that need them.

according to a report by Reuters

, research by analysts at 3 Axis Advisors shows that firms including Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline PLC, Sanofi SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Gilead Sciences Inc., and Biogen Inc. have collectively raised U.S. prices on 250 drugs since the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve. The median price increase is around five percent, Reuters wrote, while few of the drugs had price increases of (percent or more.)

Thousands of drugs saw price increases last year, according to analysisby Rx Savings Solutions, which found a 11. 5 percent average increase across 3, separate medications (that’s over five times the rate of inflation). Insurers and patients often avoid paying the full list prices of medication due to negotiated deals between manufacturers and buyers, though that’s far from certain to cover the costs, especially for the uninsured, those on insurance that refuses to cover certain drugs, or those on plans that increasingly charge percentage-based coinsurance instead of copays for prescriptions. (AsConsumer Reports reportedlast year, insurers often calculate the percentage based on the list price of the drug rather than the negotiated price.)

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found that [[“Embedded Url”,”External link”,”https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/12/31/792617538/a-decade-marked-by-outrage-over-drug-prices”,{“metric25”:1}](percent of respondents

had failed to take prescriptions as directed by medical personnel in the prior 12 months due to cost issues. As Reuters noted, the US’s market pricing model for drugs means that they cost far more than in other nations with more government control (which has also made the US the pharmaceutical industry’s single most lucrative nation).

has also fueled price increases because acquisitions can allow manufacturers to add newpatent-protected drugsto their offerings as old patents expire. Manufacturers have tried to deflect the blame by

“>saying the real issueis middlemen like pharmacy benefit managers, which handle price negotiations, and that after rebates and discounts net Prices aren’t going up at the same rates that list prices are.

) Price increases logged by Reuters include Bristol-Myers’ cancer immunotherapies Opdivo and Yervoy (1.5 percent), blood thinner Eliquis (six percent), and multiple myeloma drug Revlimid (six percent). Gilead raised the price of HIV treatments Biktarvy and Truvada by less than five percent, while Biogen raised the cost of multiple sclerosis treatment Tecfidera by six percent, the 3 Axis report showed.

A separate analysis by Rx Savings Solutions noted that Pfizer raised the prices of over 90 drugs, including breast cancer drug Ibrance and rheumatoid arthritis treatment Xeljanz, according to the

. It also raised the prices of generic injectables, such as heparins, a class of generic blood thinners (**************************************** (percent). All told, Pfizer raised the prices of over (products by over nine percent.)

Compare that to the all items consumer price index, which the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated in mid-December at about a

2.1 percent increaseover the pastmonths.

“Once you’re the sole manufacturer, you can do what you want … What is the status quo? ”Oregon Health & Science University oncologist Vinay Prasad

told NPR. “Unrelenting price increases with no downward pressure in a system that at some point cannot take it anymore and will collapse.”

“Prices go up but demand remains the same,” Rx Savings Solutions CEO Michael Rea told the Journal. “Without the appropriate checks and balances in place, this is a runaway train. Consumers, employers and health plans ultimately pay the very steep price. ”

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